Originally posted by redsoxnationI think the only question that matters is if Houston beats San Francisco while the Jets, Packers and Saints all lose, how does the 5 way multi-conference, multi-division tie break?

It would go by strength of schedule, then divisional/conference tiebreakers, then coin flips. So...

The tiebreaker for determining the draft's No. 1 spot, whether it's two teams tied for the dubious honor or five franchises, is each club's strength of schedule. Or, more accurately, their weakness of schedule. The 2005 records of each team's opponents would be totaled and the franchise that played the "easiest" schedule would land the first pick. And under that scenario, the displaced Saints could sneak into the top spot.

New Orleans' opponents have an aggregate winning mark of just .507. Then, in order, comes Green Bay (.520), the Jets (.547), Houston (.556) and San Francisco (.573), according to the league. Final analysis of strength of schedule standings cannot be determined until after all Sunday's games are completed. But it is conceivable that the Texans, who have essentially led the race all year, could fade in the stretch if they defeat the 49ers.

Originally posted by Gugs1. San Francisco2. Houston3. New York4. Green Bay5. New Orleans

According to ESPN.com, you have it the wrong way around. 1. Saints2. Packers3. J-E-T-S4. Texans5. 49ers

So what happens in the event of Redskins and Cowboys wins along with Giants, Panthers, and Bucs losses to create a five way tie at 10-6? I'm pretty sure that Washington wins the division and New York gets one of the Wild Cards, a I think Dallas would be the odd team out, but how does seeding shake out there?

Originally posted by BigSteveSo what happens in the event of Redskins and Cowboys wins along with Giants, Panthers, and Bucs losses to create a five way tie at 10-6? I'm pretty sure that Washington wins the division and New York gets one of the Wild Cards, a I think Dallas would be the odd team out, but how does seeding shake out there?

So Washington wins the NFC East and Tampa Bay wins the NFC South. The Bucs get the #3 seed because they defeated Washington 36-35 on 11/13 (when Gruden went for two and the win).

The Giants have clinched a playoff spot, so the last spot would be between Dallas and Carolina, and since the Cowboys were nice enough to beat the Panthers on Saturday Dallas would be in and Carolina would be home for the playoffs. The Giants would get the #5 seed based on their superior divisional record to Dallas.

Ah, finally done at work. Anyway, I wrote a program last night that looked at every possible outcome of the 16 games this week, and the draft order associated with it. (Math geeks know that that is 2^16, or 65536 possible combinations). Below was the result. A quick caveat. If two (or more) teams with the same record finish with the same SOS, it gives the higher pick to the team that is first alphabetically. I'm too lazy to modify it to properly give the spot to the team with the higher conference or divisional record where applicable.

Team

High Rank

Low Rank

Houston

4

1

New Orleans

6

1

New York Jets

6

1

Green Bay

7

1

San Francisco

7

1

Tennessee

11

2

Oakland

12

4

Buffalo

12

6

Detroit

12

6

St Louis

12

6

Arizona

13

6

Cleveland

13

7

Baltimore

14

12

Philadelphia

14

12

Atlanta

17

15

Miami

17

15

Minnesota

17

15

Dallas

19

18

Kansas City

26

18

San Diego

26

19

Tampa Bay

26

19

Washington

26

19

Carolina

27

19

New England

29

19

New York Giants

29

19

Pittsburgh

29

19

Chicago

29

23

Cincinnati

29

24

Jacksonville

29

24

Denver

32

30

Indianapolis

32

30

Seattle

32

30

Apologies if this shows up bad under a non-IE browser. FrontPage adds all this useless formatting. High Rank is the latest they could pick. Low Rank is the highest.

I then modified the program to only look at those possibilities where the 5 teams all finish at 3-13. Under those parameters, the printout for those 5 teams came out like this.

Team

High Rank

Low Rank

Green Bay

5

2

Houston

4

2

New Orleans

1

1

New York Jets

5

2

San Francisco

5

3

So it said that New Orleans always gets the first pick if there is a five-way-tie at 3-13. I can't assure that the program is figuring properly, but I would be willing to base my personal reputation on this board (HA!) on them being at worst a coinflip away from the #1 pick. The caveat from earlier is moot because there would be no tiebreakers with NYJ, and New Orleans wins the tiebreaker with San Francisco (because of NO's 1-11 conference record). Notice also that this does not contradict the first printout that states that New York, Green Bay, and San Francisco can finish #1. What it does say is that they can't finish #1 if New Orleans loses.

TIE-BREAKING PROCEDURE FOR SELECTION MEETINGIf two or more clubs are tied in the selection order, the strength-of-schedule tie breaker is applied, subject to the following exceptions for playoff clubs:

1. The Super Bowl winner is last and the Super Bowl loser next-to-last.2. Any non-Super Bowl playoff club involved in a tie shall be assigned priority within its segment below that of non-playoff clubs and in the order that the playoff clubs exited from the playoffs. Thus, within a tied segment a playoff club that loses in the Wild-Card game will have priority over a playoff club that loses in the Divisional playoff game, which in turn will have priority over a club that loses in the Conference Championship game. If two tied clubs exited the playoffs in the same round, the tie is broken by strength of schedule.

If any ties cannot be broken by strength of schedule, the divisional or conference tie breakers, whichever are applicable, are applied. Any ties that still exist are broken by a coin flip.

Have to give the Texans credit: There were many chances over the last 5 weeks of the season where they could have screwed up and had a winning streak. They did slip up once against Arizona, but they had enough of a safety net to allow margin for error.Of course, if the Texans had screwed up and won in overtime against the 49ers, it would have been interesting to see whether the Saints would draft Bush while still having Deuce coming back from injury, or would Bush have pulled an Elway/E. Manning and demand not to be taken by the Saints.A few teams really screwed up there draft position the last week of the season (Packers, Jets, 49ers).

If I'm the Texans, I'm trading the #1 pick for a Herschel-esque bucket of draft picks. They could take Bush and then try to deal Davis, but they'd get a lot less in return since the other teams would know the Texans would be stuck with two premier backs.

Saints need a QB badly, so Leinart (or Vince Young, if he comes out) would be the best bet. Leinart doesn't seem like the kind of jerk who would hold out ala Eli Manning, and if the Saints end up moving to LA anyway, that works out great for him since he's already the king of SoCal.

Titans and Jets both could use help at RB, so they might be candidates to trade up for Bush. Failing that, taking D'Brickashaw wouldn't be too sexy, but it would shore up their O-lines for the next decade.

That's supposed to be all lined up, but I can never get the PRE tag to work. If a mod comes here and fixes it, let me know how to get it right.EDIT: Yeah, it looked fine at work (in IE), but at home (in Firefox), it's not lined up. Weird.